


At Your Side, Always

by stereosunrise



Category: Marvel, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, M/M, Mostly Gen, No Character Death, brief angst, hawkhawks, these tags are a mess I promise I'm usually better than this, this was a warmup never meant to see the light of day but I was convinced to post it, tiny bit of shippy-ish stuff at the very end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 17:07:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19891336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereosunrise/pseuds/stereosunrise
Summary: This is fine.Warning lights suddenly bathe the room in red, and he has to reconsider that statement. Might be time to downgrade to fine-ish.a warmup I wrote as part of a friend's AU that I was talked into posting publicly.





	At Your Side, Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkyslumber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyslumber/gifts).



> I know, I know. ShinKami is still coming.
> 
> ( 'Ashi' is Hawks, Takaki Ashitaka)

Really by now he has this down to a science. He’s constantly moving, watching for the next flash of movement to give him a new target, bow at the ready. Pull an arrow from over his shoulder, nock it against the string. Breathe in, hold, fire, release. Red blossoms out around it and that’s one more body down, one more check off the list in his head. He’s pretty sure he’s down to five, with three arrows left.

This is fine.

Warning lights suddenly bathe the room in red, and he has to reconsider that statement. Might be time to downgrade to fine-ish. A misplaced EMP took out his hearing aids early on (he’d really have to bring that up to Tony, he knew his suit was protected against that, it’d certainly be helpful if he didn’t lose half his communication ability three minutes into a fight) but the light brush of feathers against his shoulder lets him know Ashitaka is still at his back even without being able to hear him. A sweep of the room shows no immediate danger -for the moment- and he taps Ashi’s hip to get his attention, praying he’d done a good enough job of teaching him sign. Five targets, three arrows, he tells him, trying to keep everything as concise as possible. Ashi nods like he understands, wearing that smile Clint swears he hates but he doesn’t, not really. 

A drop of blood beads up from a cut across Ashi’s cheek, and the line it trails over his jaw is very interesting but they should really be getting somewhere that wasn’t likely to deploy security measures on them any second. Ashi’s talking again and it takes Clint a second to figure out what he’s saying. “I can get us to the roof,” is the condensed version, the part he manages to read despite the awful lighting and smoke clouding the room, and it’s a terrible idea that’ll leave them with very little cover but they’re out of options. He nods his agreement and Ashitaka has the audacity to wink before sweeping Clint off his feet, powerful wings carrying them off the ground. There’s a hole in the ceiling of the first floor- he’s well aware, he fell through it earlier- that Ashi flies through, from there shooting out the window he broke getting in when all this started. He sticks as close to the building as he can to try and make them harder targets, and Clint isn’t sure how but when Ashi sets him down on the flat roof of the building they’re both miraculously still in one piece. 

A flicker of movement over Ashitaka’s shoulder has Clint shoving him out of the way, bow up in a heartbeat. Draw, fire-

Four targets, two arrows.

Everything is fine.

Ashi has lost too many feathers to be much help as a distance fighter, but Clint’s plan of letting their targets come to them has been proving fairly successful, and splitting up is too risky. Two more arrows, and then they could deal with a shorter-range battle, but that was future-Clint’s problem. Present-Clint is too busy scanning shadows for their next target, arrow at the ready. 

There’s something in his peripheral and he can’t tell if it was a trick of light or a person but he draws the arrow back anyway, holding steady until he had a definite target, he didn’t have enough arrows to risk wasting one. Sunlight glinted off metal a few feet away from where he was aiming and he swung around to correct and let the arrow loose, and the soft twang of his bowstring was followed by a sound behind him he felt more than heard. He turned around to find Ashitaka on his knees, red spreading outward from the center of his black t-shirt. “Oops?” 

He only has a few seconds to process what happened (he wasn’t fast enough, and it got Ashi shot-) before the blue glow of repulsors announces Tony’s arrival, and his helmet opens in time for Clint to read the second half of his conversation with Jarvis. “-and Hawks is down. Can I make ‘Ultimate Laser Tag Champion’ an official title for myself? Oh, and shut off all the hit visuals.” The red immediately disappears from Ashi’s chest, although he dramatically (and unsurprisingly) stays on the ground. Tony offers Clint a replacement earpiece, and as nice as being able to hear again is he's not looking forward to Tony's inevitable speech about them losing. He's mostly positive Natasha is the one that took that last shot anyway, and distantly he wonders if he managed to hit her. The downside of his custom Stark-designed laser tag arrows is they didn't always fly like they should.

“We almost made it, took out four of your dummies plus Steve. Maybe five plus Steve. Not bad for you springing a training exercise on us in... Wherever we are.” He offers his hand to Ashi to help him up, but rather than accept it he pulls Clint down to the roof with him instead. Clint’s reply is cut off by Tony, who heads to the edge of the roof. “Yeah, yeah, you two lovebirds can mourn your loss. Have your boyfriend fly you down when you’re done with... that.” He gestures vaguely at the two of them and steps off the roof, repulsors kicking on a second later. Presumably he was off to collect the rest of the team.

“Clint, darling, I got shot. Pay attention to me.” Ashi whines at him, unwilling to let him get up again. “I could have died.” Clint rolled his eyes, but didn’t fight the hands holding him close. “You didn’t get shot, you got tagged out. And it’s your own fault for being so bright red and obvious and not staying behind me.” He complained but he still relaxed against him, forehead resting on Ashi’s shoulder. Laser tag or not, it was still jarring, especially with how easily it could have been real. 

“Fuck off, I was shot, it counts.”

**Author's Note:**

> to inky for your encouragement, and romeo for your help with archery words/processes


End file.
